Underwater robot local dry welding system

To satisfy the demand for good quality underwater welding and maintenance of nuclear power stations, a set of local dry automatic welding systems has been developed. These systems were based on an underwater robot that consisted of a special high-power underwater welding power supply, diving wire feeder, mini drain cap, welding robot, and special underwater welding torch. With a digital signal controller microprocessor as its core and combined with a dual inverter topology, the welding power supply was characterized by full-digital construction and multi-waveform flexible output. A compact diving wire feeding device was designed, based on the armature voltage negative feedback and high-frequency chopping pulse width modulation.This device yielded a high-efficiency seal of the driving motor with the help of dynamic and static sealing technology. To overcome the difficulty of local protection and deslagging in the welding area, a mini drain cap (with a duplexgas structure) based on the principle of the convergent nozzle was designed. The practical tests and the underwater welding experiments revealed that the underwater robotic local dry welding system is quite feasible. That is, the system could strike the arc stably and reliably in the shallow water environment, and formed beautiful welding seams.